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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29258652">Semaphores of Stone</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterofElros/pseuds/DaughterofElros'>DaughterofElros</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Friendship, Gen, caring for someone with a degenerative brain condition, gemstones</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:41:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,989</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29258652</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterofElros/pseuds/DaughterofElros</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex Manes leaves Roswell and sees the world with the military.</p>
<p>Every time he returns to Roswell-- and sometimes when he doesn't-- he brings Maria a gemstone for her collection</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Maria DeLuca &amp; Alex Manes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Maria DeLuca Healing Crystals Celebration</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Semaphores of Stone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the Maria DeLuca Healing Crystals Celebration</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Alex finds the first crystal just a few weeks into his first deployment. There a bazaar that’s set up weekly at the air field in Kandahar- an attempt to put a kinder, gentler face on the US military involvement, stimulate the local economy, and give service members an opportunity to buy unique souvenirs for their family and friends back home. He’s eighteen years old, skeptical that the whole thing works likes its intended, and doesn’t have anyone he’s particularly obliged to send souvenirs to. Sure as hell not his family. Not the boy he’d imagined he might write carefully coded letters to that would slide past the notice of any scrutiny, hold enough of a illusion that he wouldn’t be telling anyone anything definitive under the looming directive of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. </p>
<p>Everyone else…He doesn’t know where Liz is. No one really does, these days. Rosa’s absence is like a big, painful hole in his life that he doesn’t dare venture too close to the edge of. He doesn’t like his family.</p>
<p>The only person he has left to care about him is Maria.</p>
<p>And so, as he’s idly perusing the tables at the bazaar, he sees a gemstone- a collection of smoky, dark spikes that whispers “Maria” to him, he picks it up. The translator calls it smoke quartz, and it feels like Maria to him, so he buys it, figures one day he’ll give it to her. He looks it up later, remembering that Maria would always know everything about what various plants and gemstones are supposed to mean, wants to make sure he hasn’t bought the equivalent of a “Fuck off, I hate you” stone. But it’s not. It’s supposed to be about moving on without bitterness, healing in a way. He figures they can both use that, with the grief they’ve gone through.</p>
<p>He keeps it with him, because it’s for Maria, and it makes him think of her. He does what he can to keep it safe, but that’s not a guarantee in his life. It never was. When he takes it out one day to find that one of the crystals has broken off, a sick wash of grief goes through him. But he saves the pieces anyway, takes it out on nights he needs just a little more comfort, needs to imagine someone misses him.</p>
<p>He gives them both to her when he goes home the first time- the big chunks of crystal, and the broken piece too.</p>
<p>He turns up on her doorstep, actually- back in Roswell for a handful of days, and not willing to go back to his Dad’s house if he can help it.</p>
<p>She shouts and wraps herself around him, the weight of her lean body comfortable and reassuring in his arms. Mimi comes out the of the kitchen to see what the commotion is all about, ends up fussing over him, telling him to stay for dinner. He eats his first home cooked meal in longer than he can remember, sitting at the worn table with the DeLuca women, stays up late drinking tea with them- the special herbal blend that Mimi makes herself- and talking, sharing stories. Mimi eventually heads to bed, makes no noises about him leaving, and Maria asks him if he wants to stay, he smiles, feels his soul settle.</p>
<p>He changes for sleep, pulls the little container he keeps hr crystal in from his duffel, climbs up on her bed to sit with her while she opens it. It’s clear she loves it— puts it in a place of prominence on her windowsill where the sun will catch it in the morning before she climbs back into bed and tucks herself in against his chest. He isn’t used to having anyone close like that anymore, but he loves that she hasn’t forgotten the ease they used to have around each other, two kids grown up before they should have had too. They fall asleep like that, tucked together for comfort, and when they wake up mid-morning and stumble out to the kitchen for coffee, they’re greeted by a Mimi who hands them mugs of coffee before she has to head to work at the bar.</p>
<p>The look she gives them both is inquisitive, and little playful, and entirely unsubtle. He has to laugh.</p>
<p>“Still gay,” he reminds Mimi.</p>
<p>“I know,” she tells him, cupping his cheek, her hands smooth and warm from the coffee mug. “Still, you define the labels. The labels don’t define you.” Her eyes are a little dreamy, and it’s probably good advice, if he can parse out what it means. That’s the way that Mimi’s advice sometimes is.</p>
<p>“Oh!” he glances down at his coffee as she moves away again, graceful as a dancer. “Do you have any milk? I’ve never quite mastered drinking coffee without a bunch of cream and sugar.”</p>
<p>“That’s right, you haven’t yet.” Mimi mutters distantly, already digging through the fridge. He glances toward Maria, who just shrugs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It feels strange when he returns to duty, not having Maria’s crystal around. Maybe that’s why the first time he sees a polished piece of rose quartz on another vendor’s table, he picks it up. She had a necklace with rose quartz when they were in school, he remembers. She’d lost it one day when they went swimming at Bottomless Lakes- they’d all spent half an hour looking for it without success, Rosa muttering darkly about the pendejo cabrón who must have stolen it.</p>
<p>This one is rounded and smooth, easy to keep in his pocket, run his fingers over whenever he needs to focus on something, whenever he thinks of home. Not his father’s house, not even entirely Roswell, but the Roswell that exists when Maria’s there to face it with him, the Roswell she’s still fighting to make her own.</p>
<p>When he sees her again, gives her the polished stone, she closes her fingers around it, closes her eyes and breathes deep.</p>
<p>“Quarts eases anxiety,” she tells him. And maybe that’s why he’s liked carrying this one around so much. It eased his anxiety for awhile, until it’s time to ease hers. He knows things are tight still for the DeLucas, knows that Maria scrimps and saves every penny she can. He’s got the sense to that… there’s something worrying her around the edges, something she isn’t talking about yet. He hopes the little pink stone he’s carried for the past several months brings her peace.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He doesn’t buy a new crystal right away. In fact, almost a year goes by before he gets her something else. </p>
<p>They email occasionally, since regular communication isn’t one of his strong suits, and phone calls an be hard to come by, what with the time zone differences. Emails work, because every time he clicks on one, types one up, he’s right back with his best friend, picks everything up where they left off, but can switch back into a combat-ready frame of mind with ease. They’re a tether tot eh world he left behind— the only parts of it he really wants to be tethered to at least.</p>
<p>In one of her emails, she talks about the headaches she’s been having again. He remembers the headaches she used to get, especially their seniors year- awful migraines that would leave her curled in on herself, wrapping her eyes in a scarf to ward off some of the pain. He’d gone to Smith’s pharmacy on at least three occasions to buy her migraine pills when an attack came on suddenly and she was trying to power through them- including one time he’d texted Rosa for a ride and ditched his study hall so he could get her some Excedrin. </p>
<p>Before he even types his reply, he’s researching which stones are supposed to relieve Migraines- because Maria’s the type to believe things like that work— and even they don’t, she’ll appreciate the gesture. He takes his next day of leave and gets permission to find a shopping center with a store that sells that type of stuff. He spends too much money on a pointed tower of Lapis Lazuli the height of his palm with a sparkling golden band weaving through it, spends even more ridiculous sums of money to ship it to her.</p>
<p>He also buys a pair of deep green jade earrings- massive teardrop shapes that he knows she’ll love-- and wraps them up in a little bag for her birthday. It doesn’t matter how many months after her actual birthday it will be when he sees her— she always likes presents, as long as they’re for her birthday. It’s not like he has much he’s trying to spend money on, anyway. Jade is supposed to be good for headaches too, and maybe wearing it can’t hurt. Definitely doesn’t hurt to give a friend who likes earrings a nice pair.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He doesn’t make it back to Roswell for almost 2 years after that.</p>
<p>When he does, Maria insists on buying him a legal drink at the Pony. She’s not working that night, so she wears the earrings, they play pool, and Mimi brings them drinks she only charges them half price for— they never even have to order, she just knows what they’ll like. It would be weird, getting drunk on the drinks your friends mother serves, but it’s Mimi, so it’s not weird the way you’d assume. They get giggly and drunk, sit in the back of Maria’s truck after last call, bundled in blankets in the desert night and watch for shooting stars while they wait for Mimi’s tips to be cashed out so she can be their designated driver.</p>
<p>She pours them up the stairs at the apartment and into Maria’s bed, makes them take of their shoes, but lets them sleep in their clothes, draping blankets over them so they’ll be warm enough, if almost certainly hungover in the morning. Maria cocoons herself in blankets on the far side of the bed, but he turns to face the door, so he sees the bittersweet expression on Mimi’s face as she watches them for a minute from the doorway, like she used to do when they were kids and would have sleepovers with the Ortecho girls, before it got weird and then okay again.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” he tells her-sleepy, contented, still intoxicated- but not so much that he slurs his words. Never that much.</p>
<p>She looks sad, even as she gives him a smile.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The next time he’s back, something close to another couple of years have blown by. He’s got a new rank, the equivalency of a new degree, and the workload to go with it. He spends some time in Australia for a training assignment as part of a joint force package, and got completely fascinated the first time he saw an opal, because he knew Maria would love all the fire and shifting colors within it- he ends up buying three of them because he can’t decide what she’d like best, what colors she’d welcome the most. Every time he picks one up, he thinks that regardless of whatever mystical properties the stones are supposed to have, the opal might be the most quintessentially Maria DeLuca stone he’s ever seen- polished on the outside, colorful…but unpredictable with flashes of fire beneath the surface. </p>
<p>It’s fitting that opals are supposed to aid with headaches as well. He knows that Maria still has the headaches occasionally. He asks if she’s seen a specialist about them, but she always clams up or ignores the question in her email, jumping on tot he next topic, so he knows that there’s something there, and also that she doesn’t want him to push. He’s learned to leave it, figures the gemstones are something she’ll appreciate a hell of a lot more than pity or get well soon cards.</p>
<p>She sends him pictures of her opening them, adding them to the growing collection of crystals and gemstones that now occupy her windowsill and cascade on the the table below.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He finds out that Amethyst is supposed to be even better for all of that, searches out and buys a gorgeous, huge piece of the stuff because he know she’ll love the color, and it won’t exactly make up for how little they see each other these days, but… it can’t hurt.</p>
<p>He actually plans to spend his down time between deployments in Roswell this time, because it’s probably getting less acceptable- or at least, less responsible, to show up at his best friend’s door with a bag slung over his shoulder and a request to crash with her for awhile.</p>
<p>She picks him up in her truck, her outfit as bold and incredible as ever, but worry and exhaustion etched in her forehead, in the corners of her eyes that she can’t hide. They hug, and she holds on a lot longer than even she tends to do. He doesn’t think the glisten in her eyes is just the strong sunlight, either. She smiles though, and suggests lunch at the Crashdown. That’s unusual for her. Maria doesn’t suggest spending money on meals out if she can help it, and she doesn’t like other people paying her way, either. He’s already trying to figure out how to get her to let him pick up the tab for lunch as he agrees.</p>
<p>“Okay, what’s the deal?” he asks as they slide into the booth.</p>
<p>“What?” she says, like she has no idea what he’s talking about, and that just sends his spidey senses tingling even harder. Maria DeLuca is nobody’s fool, and she only plays dumb when it suits her. He scrutinizes her from across the table.</p>
<p>“Picking me up, Lunch here at the Crashdown instead of heading right back to your place, you looking exhausted. Good, as always,” he hastens to add. “But exhausted. Worried. You’ve dodged questions I’ve asked you in emails and phone calls, you’re just… Something’s off. Is it the headaches? Financial stuff? Whatever it is, just…tell me. Maybe I can help.”</p>
<p>She looks at him, pity in her eyes.</p>
<p>“It’s not… not something you can help with.” She sighs. “It’s… you’re right. There’s something. And I…wanted to warn you, before you walked in the door. It’s just..hard to talk about.” She lets out a deep breath. “It’s my Mom.”</p>
<p>His worry only spikes in a new direction.</p>
<p>“She’s…something’s going on with her. She’s been losing time, losing memories.” Maria bites her lip to keep tears from welling. She even mostly succeeds.</p>
<p>“It’s… my Grandmother had sort of the same thing.” Her jaw clenches, and he aches to take away some of the tension and pain he sees in her. But all he can do is listen, hear what’s wrong. “Degenerative brain disease. They never found a cure. Never even really understood the cause. But it looks like…Mom’s got it too.”</p>
<p>“Shit.” He whispers. “Maria…”</p>
<p>She gives him a watery smile.</p>
<p>“Most of the time, she’s fine. I mean, she’s always been a little out there, a little zaney and new-agey and all that. I mean, you know how she is- amazing and brilliant, but not the Roswell Bridge Club kind of woman. And I love her for it.” She dashes away some tears, and he chokes out a laugh, even though he wants to cry too. “But then sometimes…she thinks I’m ten, or that I’m not born yet, that she’s in the future, or that Aliens are going to invade. Although that one might just be the result of too many CrashCon funnel cakes over the years…”</p>
<p>They both snort out the ghost of a laugh again, even though it’s not all that funny. He holds out his hand to her across the table, and she takes it, her grip tight like he’s a lifeline she barely acknowledges she needs.</p>
<p>“She’s been for some tests, but.. The doctors haven’t had any ideas, keep referring her to specialists we can’t exactly afford. And the specialists either don’t find anything, or are booked out for months and months, and it takes forever to get an appointment…where they once again find nothing. But something’s happening, and it’s getting harder and harder to hide. Sometimes she forgets what she’s doing, walks away and just…starts something else, or stares out into space. Or she gets lost, will drive up to an intersection and just…freeze, then say some variation of “This didn’t used to be here” for things that have been there my entire life. The last thing she did it with? Was the library. Which was built in 1968.” She sighs.</p>
<p>“It’s bad enough at home, but at work? I’m afraid Joe is going to fire her one of these days, with the way she keeps forgetting orders, walking out on shifts because she’s intent on solving some problem that doesn’t even exist, pissing people off because of it. But it’s also… three times in the last month, she’s brought people a tray full of drinks before they’ve even ordered. Some of them thought it was cool, but the others? Freaked them the hell out. And two weeks ago, she brought a whole round of drinks to an empty table, served them right up to the nobody who was sitting there. Joe took the cost out of her paycheck, but… at the end of the night, I waited on two couples who came in together and sat at that table. They ordered exactly the drinks Mom brought to them.”</p>
<p>Alex’s eyes go wide at that.</p>
<p>“That’s…uncanny.”</p>
<p>“That’s one word for it, at least.”She folds the wrapper from her straw into smaller and smaller rectangles. “I didn’t tell anyone, because it would freak them out too much. But it’s getting harder for her to make it through the episodes. And  harder on me too, because… yeah, I mean, it’s hard when she gets angry, snaps at me or shouts about something that doesn’t makes sense, but… when your own mother looks at you and doesn’t recognize you…there aren’t words for that.” He face finally crumples, and Alex is out of his own side of the booth and crowding in on the bench beside her, pulling her toward him. She ducks her head into his shoulder so no one can see her stricken expression.</p>
<p>“I just… wanted you to know,” she says into his jacket, “in case… she’s forgotten you, or…wants you to sleep on the couch because she thinks we’re fourteen again and doesn’t know you’re gay yet, or starts talking like it’s 1985.”</p>
<p>He rests his cheek on the top of her head, her curls tickling his jaw.</p>
<p>“I’m glad you told me.” He tightens his arm around her just the tiniest bit. “And for the record? I will come out to Mom a hundred times if she needs, so I can be here for you both.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s harder than he realized it would be, though. His heart aches to think of Maria going through all of this, switching from being the person taken care of to the person doing the care-taking at such a young age. So much of the time, Mimi seems utterly fine— she greets Alex with warmth and love, enfolds him in her slender arms, her floor-length linen sweater flowing airily around him and her collection of necklaces pressing into this chest. She laughs and jokes like she always has, wins most of the hands of poker they play for M&amp;Ms the way she taught them in the eighth grade.</p>
<p>And then… she’ll be gone for awhile, staring off into the middle distance, muttering things that make no sense. She’ll frown and shy away, flinch from anyone who tries to touch her and be suspicious of everything. Sometimes after the episodes, she’ll be back to her usually sunny self, sometimes she’ll be exhausted and have to be helped to bed to sleep the rest of the day— but not always the night. She’ll wander sometimes in the night too, so there’s an extra lock on the door now.</p>
<p>He starts to see the ways that Maria’s had to curve her life in order to keep Mimi safe. Mimi cooks so much of the time still— but Maria’s already told him not to leave her unsupervised in the kitchen, because even a little episode can have her setting a pot holder charring on a hot burner, or leaving the stove on for hours. She’ll be scrambling eggs, but turn the oven on because she says she was making fresh bread…even though the flour is still packed away in the cabinet. It means they spend plenty of time together in the kitchen, with beer, or wine, or glasses of tea, talking and laughing together. It’s time that’s special. But it’s also time that exists as a safeguard.</p>
<p>A trip to the grocery store with Maria while Mimi is at work the second afternoon he’s in Roswell is full of stark revelations for him- not just the way that Maria fills the cart with foods that Mimi can prepare without needing the stove, but how ingrained it already is, how fluid she makes it look, explaining things that Alex hasn’t even thought to consider.</p>
<p>He sees it too in the ways that she’s gotten Mimi’s schedule consistent and reliable, the same shift every day— how she’ll start texting and calling the other servers when Joe puts out a schedule that isn’t the one he’s agreed to, getting them to swap shifts with her so that Mimi’s schedule can be steady… or the way that some of the staff at the Pony like Luciano and Philippa will help out where they can, work seamless reminders about which tables need which orders into their communication with Mimi. If he didn’t know what they were doing, he might have missed it.</p>
<p>The signs are there, scattered all around the more he learns to look for them— books of crossword puzzles that Mimi flies through as memory exercises. The color-coded planners that Maria and Mimi both keep- like the grown-up version of how Maria’s assignment book had been color-coded ever since he could remember- back then with gel pens and highlighters, now with colorful soft-nibbed pens, highlighters, and post-it notes that track schedules, doctor’s appointments, errands, bills to pay and more. The changes are subtle, but they’re there. Most days, they seem like they might even be overkill…and then there will be things like the day he borrow’s Maria’s truck to go pick up Enchiladas from the crashdown, and gets back to find Michelle Valenti at the DeLucas, squad car in front of the apartment because Mimi had placed a whispered 911 call saying that people in secret military uniforms were trying to break in through the windows. Fortunately, Michelle knows how to handle that type of thing. Alex is disturbingly aware that too many cops aren’t.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Late that night, he and Maria wrap themselves in blankets to sit on the front stoop and look up at the stars while they pass a bottle of wine back and forth.</p>
<p>“You know what the worst part is?” Maria says. “It that…they don’t know what this is, but they think it’s genetic. And they can’t test for it. But since Mom has it, and Grandma Patti had it… there’s a good chance I’m looking at my own future here too.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he passes her back the bottle of wine.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He actually has a vacation planned, so after a little while in Roswell, he heads to Oregon, where he’s laid out some of the money he so rarely spends to have a tiny cottage on the coast all to himself for a few weeks. He spends the first few days swimming, hiking, reading, enjoying the unencumbered time. The third day, he gets a text from Maria telling him that her Mom has been fired from the Pony. </p>
<p>He calls her immediately, listens to the waves crash in his right ear while her voice flows into his left, telling him how it happened, what an asshole Joe is, venting about everything even as she tells him that she and Mimi will be okay, that she has some ideas of how they’re going to move forward, refusing his offer to help out with the bills or expenses. He still feels unsettled by the time they hang up, so he calls up Dahlia’s Dahlias and orders Mimi a boquet of flowers with a card that just says “Fuck ‘em”. Maria texts him a picture the next day and tells him that Mimi loved them.</p>
<p>The next day he ventures into the nearest town, armed with knowledge from a conversation with the folks who own and rent out the cottage about which shops might sell some Oregon gemstones. He lucks out in the second store, a tourist’s emporium crammed full of a broad range of souvenirs that range from classy and expensive to tacky and also surprisingly expensive. The sales girl is wearing three crystal necklaces, and directs him to a shelf with examples of petrified wood and Oregon sunstone. She convinces hims to buy both with all of her talk about healing, and relieving stress, dissipating fears. And when she show him how a particular piece of the petrified wood has opalized, flecks of purple showing through the ancient wood grains, he knows Maria’s going to want it, as well as the faceted yellow crystal that looks like it’s lit on fire from within.</p>
<p>By the end of the week, Maria calls him to announce that she’s bought a bar.</p>
<p>Specifically, she’s bought the Pony.</p>
<p>“How…?” he asks. He does pretty well for himself, but he’s fairly sure he can’t buy a bar. How much does a bar even cost?</p>
<p>“I hustle, and I invested all of the money I inherited from Grandma Patty, plus part of every paycheck I’ve gotten since I was fifteen. And I offered Joe cash if he cut the price. So now I own a bar. Which, considering the health expectations for women in my family, essentially makes this my midlife crisis.”</p>
<p>He laughs even through the way his heart clenches at the idea.</p>
<p>He buys a ticket back to Roswell the next day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He spends the rest of what’s supposed to be his vacation time helping Maria and Mimi, assisting with some repairs and renovations at the Pony, making sure that Maria actually gets a chance to eat, that Mimi has some type of routine that isn’t completely disrupted and that could send her into a spiral of bad days. He sees Michael helping out with a repair to some siding in exchange for some free beer, which leads to an absolutely disastrous one-night re-visiting of why they’d gotten together years before, and why they’d broken up before he shipped out.</p>
<p>During the nights, he helps Maria pour over the books, accounts, and stock lists, sorting through the mess that Joe had left, figuring out what was mismanagement and what was just a very singular filing system.</p>
<p>He gives Maria the petrified wood and the Sunstone, watches her add them to her growing collection, along with a small geode he find in the parking lot at the Pony, and that he and Mimi open with a hammer and chisel to show frosty crystals inside.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He deploys again, goes back to being an airman while Maria works on making her business profitable. He isn’t back in Roswell as often as he’d like to see her, and she’s still , along with Mimi, the the only reason he ever even goes back to that god-forsaken town. And because he’s not there in person, he sends stones.</p>
<p>Apophylite, the color of mint ice cream for healing, mined from a basalt quarry in India. Lemon Calcite from Pakistan for determination. He sends Ocean Jasper from Manadgascar for the relief of stress and tension, a Moonstone for prosperity, peace, and protection and a large polished piece of Labradorite for protection and mental acuity, Pink Amethyst for easing grief and sadness as Mimi’s condition progresses.</p>
<p>He sends them to Roswell, messages of thought and care that arrive more reliably than he does on his brief sojourns, that remain there even when he can’t-a reminder to Maria that he cares, that he’s there for her in whatever ways he can be. He’s like a magpie, bringing her back shiny things he knows will matter to her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When he gets injured, after the surgery is over and they’re looking at developing a care plan, fitting him for a prosthesis, sending him back to Roswell in an official capacity, he realizes that this will become the first time that  he’s come back to Roswell since high school without a crystal for Maria. He sends her a text message to let her know how his recovery is progressing, jokes with her about the crystals.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A few days later he comes back to his bed from physical therapy and sees that he’s gotten a package. His reflexive wariness abates when he sees Maria’s familiar handwriting, the DeLuca’s return address on the label. And inside, nestled in a bed of tissue paper, is a  round green sphere flecked with red, about an inch in diameter, and a little stand to keep it from rolling all over the place. It’s a pleasant weight and feeling in his hand, and the paper underneath claims that it’s bloodstone— good for healing and dispersing negative energy.</p>
<p>On the back of the little paper in Maria’s flowing, artistic handwriting are the words “I’ve Got You.”</p>
<p>Beneath that is the shard of Smoke Quartz that had broken off of the stone he’d given Maria all those years ago.</p>
<p>For healing, and moving on without bitterness, he remembers.</p>
<p>He needs that more than ever now.</p>
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